Starting in fall 2012, incoming students to UVU will have to meet a little bit more criteria than in years past.
Utah Valley University is one of the largest higher education institutions in Utah and is the fourth-largest open-admission university in the country. If the student body were to continue to grow at the rate it is at now, the estimated student body would be 46,000 by 2020.
UVU has grown largely because of the open admissions, so anyone who applies can become a student. A “one-size-fits all” approach, essentially.
With so many incoming students, the school cannot meet everyone’s needs, both in funding and educationally. However, UVU has promised to meet the state’s mandate to remain open admissions and to accommodate the bulk of the growth, along with other schools in the state.
The struggle between the school’s mission of “being both an open admissions and being academically rigorous across the curriculum” has now been restructured. UVU will now have what is called Structured Enrollment.
This new enrollment policy for incoming and transfer students states:
“New students admitted before or at 23 years of age will be required to have an ACT composite score of 19 or higher and a high school GPA of 2.5 or higher on a 4.0 scale. New students admitted at or after 24 years of age will be required to have Accuplacer scores with demonstrated minimums. Transfer students will be required to present college transcripts with the equivalent of UVU Math 1010 and English 1010 and a transfer GPA of 2.0 or higher.”
If students don’t meet these requirements, there is still going to be a way for them to take classes.
“Newly admitted students who do not meet the above requirements will be allowed to enroll with guidance through a series of required steps (meet with academic counselor, attend orientation, and immediately and sequentially move through individually identified remediation and developmental courses.)”
Once these students have gone through this “guidance” their next step is to move on to higher classes.
“To enroll in upper-division (majors) courses, students will be required to complete and/or transfer in at least 24 credits of 1000-level or above courses with a cumulative GPA of at least 2.0”
The Structured Enrollment policy is set forth to take effect for incoming and transfer students for fall of 2012. Not only will the educational requirements be the biggest difference, the deadline for registration will also be a change.
This new policy should help with the increasing number of students coming to UVU.
Val Hale, Vice President of University Relations, said that students were asked about the open admissions here at UVU, and he said they loved it. These students also said that they were concerned about whether their fellow classmates would be serious about schooling.
Open admissions gives everyone a chance for higher education, but this new policy will help, as Hale said, “keep the door open, give help to those who need help, and elevate [the rest of the student body].”
Hale said that the administration likes to call the program for students who do not meet all of the requirements a “path”. This “path” will be a place where they will get help to get them ready for upper division classes.
Students will now have to apply and be accepted as a student at UVU by August 1. In the past, students could wait and apply to be a student as late as three weeks into the semester. The last few years, UVU started using Aug. 15 as the deadline. Hale also mentioned that this date has worked well to better help estimate classroom numbers. Aug. 1 will be the admissions deadline from now on with this policy.
By Janessa McNeill
News Writer
